The use of unbleached cotton fabric for ironing board covers has two problems associated with it. Unbleached cotton carries natural oils which are rather heat sensitive. Thus, if unbleached cotton is utilized as the visible surface on an ironing board cover, the use of a hot iron tends to deteriorate the oils and cause unsightly and undesirable scorch marks even though the cotton fabric itself is not affected by such scorching. One solution to scorching is to bleach the cotton. This, of course, is a substantial additional cost to the raw material.
The problem of scorching of ironing board covers has been with us for many years with no suitable solution available up to the time of the present invention. British Specification 622,575 dated May 4, 1949 provides one solution to the problem by providing a thick layer of water absorbing padding material within a water-tight bag or skin to keep the padding saturated. Clearly, this is a complex undesirable and unsatisfactory solution to the problem.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,507,350, 4,438,169 and 4,562,107 teach providing opaque coatings on fabric but these patents do not provide satisfactory teaching for ironing board covers.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,940,355 and 4,027,062 disclose fire resistant coatings for fabrics but these coatings are unsatisfactory for inexpensive ironing board covers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,623,396 discloses a material which can be used in practicing the present invention however, the patent does not teach an ironing board cover as described and claimed herein.
The sizing of unbleached cotton with acrylic sizes which contain fillers, such as calcium carbonate or titanium dioxide, is very well known indeed. It is the standard operating procedure for inexpensive "canvases" which are made of cotton duck. More expensive canvases are linen but are also similarly treated with an acrylic usually under the trade name of "Gesso".